Questions adapted from: The Agile Church: Spirit Led Innovation in an Uncertain Age,

Dwight J. Zscheile, Morehouse Publishing 2014 https://www.luthersem.edu/faculty/dzscheile001/

Chapter 1 Agility and Innovation

1. Share a story of a time when you personally risked making a “good mistake” by trying something new. What was that experience like?

2. Identify a moment in St. Paul’s life in which you tried and failed in connecting with your neighbors or with different populations and generations. What did that experience teach you?

3. What in St. Paul’s current life represents a traditioned innovation- a new practice, custom or initiative that is rooted deeply in what has gone before?

Chapter 2 Faith and Spirituality in a Fluid and Insecure Age

1. What signs of religious climate change do you notice in your family and neighborhood?

2. How has St. Paul’s tried to respond?

3. What might the secular shifts mean for St. Paul’s relationship with its members? What about the neighbors?

Chapter 3: Forming and Restoring Community in a Nomadic World

1. Which Biblical character(s) do you identify with most as you thing about your own journey and calling?

2. If God meets us where we are in Christ, what might that mean for St. Paul’s relationship with its neighbors
   as the body of Christ?

3. Was there ever a time when you came to see and interpret the world differently? How did this happen?

Chapter 4: Failing Well, or What the Church Can Learn from Silicon Valley

1. As you consider St. Paul’s life, where might the future be already present in your midst? Who might “positive deviants” be from whom you can learn together as a community how to practice the Way of Jesus more deeply?

2. What relationships with neighbors already exist at St. Paul’s through which you might lean more about the surrounding community’s hopes, dreams, and struggles?

3. What kinds of iterative small experiments might St. Paul’s be called to that would help you connect more deeply with your neighbors?

Chapter 5: Disciplines of a Learning Church

1. Where might a usable past lie in St. Paul’s life and history?

2. What fears keep St. Paul’s from engaging in the tough conversations and risky experiments that might open up a new future?

3. What might it mean to translate St. Paul’s cherished traditions and practices into new vernaculars to speak with your neighbors?

Chapter 6: Organizing for Innovation

1. Where is innovation currently taking place at St. Paul’s?

2. How is the innovation connected to the rest of St. Paul’s life? How might it be more deeply connected?

3. What might need to be borrowed and forgotten for the sake of learning at St. Paul’s?

Conclusion:

1. When have you experienced God’s presence amidst a time of disorientation and loss?

2. Which neighbors in your life & world might you be called to accompany on their journey?

3. How might the risen Jesus be present to you as you break bread together?